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How an embattled energy storage project in Acton, California, is threatening faster federal permits.
One hour north of Los Angeles, the small town of Acton is experiencing a battery energy storage buildout — and quickly becoming the must-watch frontline in the backlash against lithium-ion energy storage systems. The flashpoint: wildfires.
Like many parts of California, Acton has hot summers with heavy winds, putting it at elevated risk of the kind blaze that makes national headlines. Battery storage fires, while rare, are a unique threat, with relatively little data available about them to help regulators or the public understand the risk. People in Acton wondered: Would they really be safe if a wildfire engulfed a battery storage site, or if a battery failure sparked a new conflagration?
When L.A. County blessed the first battery energy storage system project in Acton last year, developers and local fire officials said they were doing everything in their power to ensure the batteries would meet safety standards. Residents were far from convinced.
“This will turn our community into industrial hell and it’ll erase us from the face of the Earth,” Jacqueline Ayer, a member of Acton’s town council, told me. Ayer is helping lead the local fight against the projects.
I’ve now spent more than a month researching the fight in Acton. In the process, I’ve learned how much — or little — we know about when battery energy storage and wildfires mix. We’ll get to that later in this story. To be honest, debunking battery fire risk wasn’t why I spent a month on Acton. It was what happened when the fears took hold.
Feeling they’d been failed by both the regulatory approval process and the court system, the Acton project’s opponents turned to their representative in Washington, House Republican Mike Garcia. Though Garcia can’t do anything to stop this particular project, he can severely hinder future ones: As Heatmap can exclusively report, after lobbying from Acton, Garcia inserted language into the annual funding bill for the Department of Energy that would block it from implementing a new rule designed to expedite permits for federally funded battery projects.
“What we’re hoping is that [with Garcia] being at the federal level, he’ll shed some light to the people at the top,” said Ruthie Brock of the activist group Acton Takes Action, “because if the top becomes informed, it’ll trickle down to local governments.”
This is why the Acton fight is so important — it demonstrates the risk of failing to obtain community buy-in, which can ricochet in ways no one intended. The political and media environments are quick to sensationalize the downsides of renewable energy, creating a tinderbox atmosphere in which small local fights can quickly become national ones.
On some level, a fight over battery fires going national was inevitable. Across the country, from New York to Washington state, communities are revolting against battery energy storage sites coming to their backyards. Often, those opposed cite the feared threat of fires or explosions.
Fires in battery energy storage systems, a.k.a. BESS, are quite rare. According to what data is available, the number of fires has stayed relatively flat even as deployment has grown drastically. There were fewer than 10 failure events in the U.S. in 2023, and there have been even fewer so far this year.
But when a fire does happen, experts say it can be quite difficult to put out. In some cases, there’s nothing a community can do other than let the blaze run.
“There’s a lack of consensus. There’s a lot of experts out there providing guidance, and that’s something we’re trying to work on with training throughout the country,” Victoria Hutchinson, an engineer with the Fire Protection Research Foundation, told me. “[It’ll] instill some fear in the meantime we figure out the best approach.”
Information on BESS and wildfires is even less available. Guillermo Rein, a professor of fire science and the editor-in-chief of the journal Fire Technology, told me the matter has not really been studied.
“When I say [BESS are] new, I mean really new,” Rein said. “We hardly know how it works when it gets [on] fire and we don’t have many technologies that are proven to work. We have technologies that we wish will work, but proven technologies that work are very rare. That means we have a new hazard we are struggling to understand and in the meantime, we don’t know how to protect against it.”
Los Angeles County approved Acton’s first battery storage system — Humidor, a 300 megawatt project by Hecate Energy — last summer through an expedited “ministerial” process, the local equivalent of a “categorical exclusion” under the National Environmental Policy Act. Ministerial reviews and categorical exclusions are used by regulators to skip the drawn out process of an environmental review because they can reasonably predict a lack of significant impact. Joseph Horvath, a spokesperson for L.A. County Planning, gave me a statement defending the approval and stating BESS projects must meet all local and state zoning and fire codes to receive a ministerial approval.
California had identified the Acton community back in 2021 as a potential site for energy storage to protect against future power shut offs. Acton made sense because it’s close to the SoCal Edison Vincent substation, making it well positioned to connect to the grid. There was also a real sense of urgency: To achieve its goal of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045, the state estimates it will need to install a projected 52,000 megawatts or more of battery storage. Humidor is the first of what appears to be multiple projects being planned for the area, including two more Hecate facilities according to materials on the company’s website.
Convinced that a battery boom could mix poorly with extreme fire risk, and that the county moved far too fast to approve Humidor, Acton residents sued. The county, they argued, had little reason to conclude the facility would have an insignificant impact on the environment — so few BESS projects have been approved that the county used the standards from a different kind of project — an electrical substation — to draw that conclusion. L.A. County Planning told me they chose this comparison for reasons including the “purpose of BESS and its connection to the larger network for distributive purposes.”
Rein told me that at least when it comes to the fire risk, this isn’t an accurate comparison, and that there’s not actually enough data to claim such a facility would have an insignificant impact. “I would put great efforts into making sure this facility is safe,” he said. “They can’t just say, I met the regulation, I did enough. Because it’s a new hazard.”
Many of those in Acton opposed to the project believe the approval was rushed, and claim that little information was made available to the public as it was going through the county’s process. Furious residents have told county planners that the Acton town council was not notified in advance that an approval was on its way. They testified before the county board of supervisors that Hecate held only a single public meeting to discuss what it intended to build, with little notice given to potentially concerned citizens.
In my experience as a journalist reporting on large energy projects with serious community impacts, transparency is key to getting local buy-in to build a project. For years I covered the mining industry, where innumerable decades of toxic waste spills and labor scandals have forced companies to really innovate and spend serious dough on obtaining “social license to operate,” a term developers and investors use to describe acceptance to a company’s business practices.
This, of course, differs from the YIMBY school of thought that companies and governments should eschew frustrated municipalities to pursue the overriding net good of climate action. There are certainly merits to this argument, especially when it comes to communities that won’t take yes for an answer, and we’ll be exploring case studies supporting that view in future editions of The Fight.
I’m on the fence about whether Acton is one of those cases, though. Ayer, an environmental engineer by trade, told me she supports decarbonization and wants to see climate action happen. She just wants to feel assured the technology is safe.
If it wasn’t a lithium-ion battery storage facility “I would feel comfortable,” she said. “We will shoulder some of the weight. But it isn’t right that we shoulder all of the weight.”
When I tried to talk to Hecate about Acton’s wildfire concerns and how the company had engaged with the community, a company spokesperson, Bobby Howard, declined to make anyone available for an interview citing “ongoing litigation related to the subject.” Howard provided a factbook that said only that Humidor would “meet or exceed” local and state fire codes — without specifying which codes — and detailed some of the outreach the company did, including the public meeting as well as mailers to “thousands of individuals throughout the greater Los Angeles area, including civically engaged individuals throughout Acton.”
Howard declined to answer questions requesting more information about the company’s public outreach and wildfire planning. He did tell the Los Angeles Times earlier this year that Humidor would have “seismic bracing, safety zones around the perimeter, substantial setbacks from parcel boundaries, gravel breaks and a masonry wall around the facility.”
Stanford University senior research scholar and legal energy expert Michael Wara explained to me that in cases like these, having buy-in from the community is important to avoiding litigation and social blowback. “That is losing,” Wara said. “You have not served your client if you end up in litigation.”
“Having a process by which people are informed about a project and have an opportunity to provide input is important for buy-in for all kinds of projects related to the energy transition if you want to build in a democratic society,” he said. “Is it really the fire risk the community is concerned about?”
When it comes to the Acton battery fight, it’s the fears of fire that scare me the most, not the fire itself.
I sought reasons to be optimistic about putting battery energy storage in areas like Acton that are prone to wildfire because, well, California is essentially one big fire risk zone. James Campbell, a wildfire policy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, told me that battery energy storage decreases net wildfire risk compared to gas storage tanks and pipelines. “If we consider the whole-climate trade-offs, battery systems are much safer,” he said.
On its end, Hecate claimed in a letter to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that a BESS fire has never traveled off-site, and that because the fires are fueled by flammable gasses, there is minimal risk of embers traveling elsewhere and igniting grass or bushes. The company pointed me to this letter when I reached out for comment.
“Nothing about fire risk mitigation is about certainty. It’s more, risk mitigation and fire is kind of like wearing a seatbelt,” Wara told me. “If you’re going 120 miles an hour down the highway and you get in a high-speed collision, your seatbelt will not save you. [But] there’s rapid advances in how these systems work.”
In the end, he added, meeting California’s carbon emissions targets will “probably mean building somewhere that there is non-trivial wildfire risk.”
What’s happening to offshore wind should be a cautionary tale for developers considering whether sinking time and money into community relations is really worth it: Last year, coastal fishermen and beach town mayors in New Jersey joined forces with fossil fuel funding and right-wing agitators to foment a conspiracy-infused campaign against offshore wind that has truly rattled the future of the industry.
Part of that offshore wind backlash grew out of New Jersey Republicans in Congress using the pulpit of their offices and filing amendments to legislation. As Garcia takes up Acton’s cause, I do wonder whether battery energy storage might be next. November’s election makes it less likely his language hindering expedited approvals for BESS projects will make it into the final funding bill, and Garcia’s office did not respond to requests to discuss its prospects.
But regardless, it’s an ember that could become a fire of its own.
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Rockland Solar accuses East Fairfield, Pennsylvania, of “municipal extortion.”
A solar developer is accusing a Pennsylvania town of requesting a $150 million bribe to get its permits, calling it “municipal extortion.”
Rockland Solar – a subsidiary of utility-scale solar developer Birch Creek – filed a federal lawsuit last week accusing officials in the northern Pennsylvania township of East Fairfield of intentionally moving the goalposts for getting permits to build over the span of multiple years. Rockland’s attorneys in the litigation describe the four officials controlling the township’s board of supervisors as engaging in “corrupt” behavior to deny the project, “ultimately culminating in the solicitation of a bride of more than $150,000,000” in exchange for approval of its application to develop land in the township.
The federal complaint scans as a horror story in solar development. Applications for Rockland Solar’s project were first filed in 2021 and granted approval from the township’s zoning officials in 2022, per the company’s legal complaint. But things seem to have gone south when Rockland Solar sought approval of its first land use application from the town, as replies to emails from town officials became scattershot and sporadic.
In August 2024, per the lawsuit, East Fairfield officials scheduled a crucial public meeting to decide whether to approve the application without notifying Rockland Solar itself, which the company claims was an intentional move “in corrupt and underhanded bad faith” meant “to consider, and then deny” the application “without providing due process.” According to the lawsuit, one of the reasons for the denial was that the project was located within the township – despite it already being approved by zoning officials.
Rockland Solar then took the town to Pennsylvania claims court over the decision because it was reached after a statutory deadline, according to the lawsuit. Amidst this legal fight, the company submitted a second application to build the project – making what the company says were many size and setback changes intended to address the reasons for the apparent denial. East Fairfield ultimately denied the project again. But the developer kept trying, negotiating in apparent good faith with the town’s lawyers to try and reach an agreement.
Then came the alleged request for a bribe. Per a letter cited in the legal complaint, officials asked the developer to pay the town annual payments every year the project was operating – starting at $5,000 and then increasing 25% “every year for the life of the facility,” and that land owners bordering the property would also need to be “compensated 10% of their current property value.” Rockland Solar’s attorneys calculated the annual payments alone to total at least $3 million in the thirtieth year of the project and $30 million a decade later.
Altogether, Rockland Solar’s attorneys landed on the whopping $150 million figure, stipulating that this figure doesn’t include the payments to neighboring property owners. The company argues that this “solicitation of money by a township commissioner to a developer” in exchange for “favorable treatment of a land use application” violated the state bribery statute.
I’ve seen a lot of conflict writing The Fight – including lots of lawsuits filed by developers and residents alike – but I’d never seen an escalation this profound. Normally, suing the town you’re building a project in is a bad idea because it can spoil the well of public trust. I can’t help but think this maneuver was a last resort for Rockland Solar.
It’s also quite rare to get an inside look at the negotiations between a developer and a town. We’re used to seeing community benefit agreements and compacts come and go and I’ve told you how those deals have mixed results. Rockland Solar is now a case study in perhaps one of the worst ways those talks can end up.
I reached out to Rockland Solar’s attorneys, as well as Birch Creek, but failed to hear back. I also tried to reach officials in East Fairfield to hear their take on these extraordinary claims, but no dice. Here’s hoping that writing this leads to them reaching out as well, because this is fascinating and I want to learn more for all of you!
And more of the week’s top news in renewable energy fights.
1. Waldo County, Maine – The Republican-led bid to stop an offshore wind industrial site on Sears Island has failed.
2. Atlantic County, N.J. – We’re expecting a decision any minute now in the fight over EPA’s decision to rescind a crucial air permit for the Atlantic Shores’ offshore wind project.
3. Worcester County, Maryland – This may surprise you but the Trump administration’s Justice Department argued against opponents of offshore wind.
4. Wake County, North Carolina – Legislators in Tar Heel County are considering a bill to remove solar tax credits for projects on farmland.
5. Lawrence County, Alabama – It looks like at least one solar project in Alabama could get the Trump administration’s blessing.
6. Jay County, Indiana – We have a new place to watch for a renewable energy moratorium, folks.
7. Renville County, Minnesota – A 200-megawatt Ranger Solar project is nearing final permits from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.
8. Whitman County, Washington – Steelhead Americas is giving up on getting permission from county leaders and going straight to the state for its Harvest Hills wind project.
9. Apache County, Arizona – Officials in this county are working on a draft renewable energy ordinance with “preferred area[s] that’ll be reviewed as soon as next month, according to one local report.
A conversation with Rebecca Barel and Dan Cassata of Columbia
This week’s Q&A is a change of pace. I was contacted by two student researchers – Rebecca Barel and Dan Cassata – requesting to interview me for some policy and social science research they’ve been up to at Columbia University sponsored by the policy organization Clean Tomorrow.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Wouldn’t it be neat if I interviewed academics engaging in this research about their experience doing this work in such a hostile political environment?
So I asked Rebecca and Dan if our conversation could wind up being a bit of a dialogue, instead of something one-sided. Much to my satisfaction, they agreed – and I wound up getting a lot more hopeful by the end of our talk than I was when it started.
Anywho, the following chat has been edited for clarity. Let’s take it away?
Tell me about your research project, first and foremost.
Dan: The project writ large, the central idea of it is there’s this suite of either policy or non-policy mechanisms we can use to take benefits that accrue from a renewables project and deliver them to a local community, as opposed to let’s say an extractive model. The project is trying to understand what that suite of tools look like and to what extent any of those tools have an influence on public opinion. You’ve done a lot of reporting on community backlash, community opposition. We’re trying to understand how much of this opposition is coming from this view: benefits aren’t coming to us, so why should we support this?
It feels like we can actually add value here. Sometimes when you do grad school research, you’re just putting stuff on paper to get a degree and not doing anything meaningful.
I wanted to talk about this with you because I love conversations with those who, like myself, are obsessed with this niche issue. Can you tell me more about the experience of researching conflicts in renewable energy development right now, amid the war on climate action and renewable energy generally? How does it feel to be doing this research at this time?
Rebecca: I can take that – I mean, in California specifically, one of the mechanisms was that the offshore wind leases are required to have community benefit agreements and a labor agreement. I had an interview with someone who’d written about this topic yesterday who said, quick question – where do you see this going? What’s happening now that Trump is so anti-offshore wind? And I said, That’s what I was going to ask you. Most of my research is at this point coming from Heatmap, because most of the mainstream news outlets aren’t concerned with these issues. They’re bogged down with the visa situations, and being at Columbia is an interesting experience right now.
Dan: Rebecca touched on this but to be more explicit – it is entirely up to the state governments. We’re not looking at the federal policies. That’s not to say there aren’t uncertainties that come with that, and federal incentives obviously matter. Whether or not a project is going to pencil depends on federal incentives. But focusing on the state level has created more of a lane where our work can still feel relevant and be completely overturned and what not.
I’d ask you, Jael – are they more or less confident about opposing projects now that Trump’s in office?
Maybe. There’s certainly some degree of emboldened opposition. I see that as a journalist and I wonder what place there is for the research you’re doing – I wonder how it will be used.
Dan: The dimensions on which some of this is happening is separate from the politics, and that’s a note of optimism from me I guess. You can structure things and it might not be as uniform and widespread as you would like but there are places where you can work and be effective.
Rebecca: I’d add the renewable energy debate, there’s a broader question of what will win out in America over the next few years. Money in pocket or charismatic propaganda that motivates how people vote and what people choose to back. I think we’re at a crux in that right now because of the tariffs but in Texas, generally, if you were to put the people in that area into a box – they might have MAGA hats but at the end of the day, they’re about the money in their pocket. That’s how we ordinarily think of American voters.
I feel like money in my pocket might win, but it’s going to take a while.
How much interest in your work have you seen from the private sector or public officials?
Dan: We’ve spoken to public commissioners at the county level. I had a call right before this conversation with someone from a state-level public service commission. Everyone gets back to us. I do think the private sector has been less engaged. I don’t know if that’s less of an interest though – I read it as the private sector not tending to talk about their work with folks like us very often. There’s not that much in it for them.
Dan: I’d like to ask you this Jael – does it feel like community engagement is a meaningful thing?
This edition of the newsletter will begin with a company accusing a township of soliciting a bribe after years of moving goalposts and redlines. I’m not that optimistic.
Where do you see policy being a solution in this circumstance?
Dan: Let’s take as a given that community benefit agreements work. The research – and what we’ve found – is that that’s not really a given. But they can work. And there are states like New York and California that have legislation that heavily incentivizes developers to go through this process of community engagement to qualify for tax credits or get permits. The reason that we are doing this research is because if you were able to have a case that this is really effective at improving projects and the speed of getting buy-in – we’d argue in our [eventual] report that this type of legislation should become more widespread.
If the conclusion is these things don’t seem to be impactful, then that’s where it justifies the case to look at this other suite of mechanisms that might be more helpful. For projects of a certain size, in New York for example, you can circumvent local zoning regulations and go through a state approval process.
The last thing I’ll ask: what gives you hope at this moment?
Dan: There’s obviously a lot of things that are going poorly right now when it comes to policy at the federal level on the energy transition. But I just think the ship has sailed – the boat might take longer to get there but the ship has left the port, and renewables are cost competitive if not cheaper than fossil energy.
Rebecca: There are people trying to do bad things and bad faith actors in power, but there are a lot of people trying really hard to make things better, and as long as there are people trying – there is a chance. It might take longer, and we might be slowed down, but for me what brings me hope is that every conversation I have with someone smart and capable and actively doing something to improve the environment, we’re not done yet.